Question

I have the following code that does a circular shift of the bits in the array:

private static void method1(byte[] bytes) {
    byte previousByte = bytes[0];
    bytes[0] = (byte) (((bytes[0] & 0xff) >> 1) | ((bytes[bytes.length - 1] & 0xff) << 7));
    for (int i = 1; i < bytes.length; i++) {
       byte tmp = bytes[i];
       bytes[i] = (byte) (((bytes[i] & 0xff) >> 1) | ((previousByte & 0xff) << 7));
       previousByte = tmp;
    }
}

Then I thought it’s easier and more readable to go backwards like this:

private static void method2(byte[] bytes) {
    byte lastByte = bytes[bytes.length-1];
    for (int i = bytes.length-1; i > 0; i--) {
       bytes[i] = (byte) (((bytes[i] & 0xff) >> 1) | ((bytes[i-1] & 0xff) << 7));
    }
    bytes[0] = (byte) (((bytes[0] & 0xff) >> 1) | ((lastByte & 0xff) << 7));
}

But I noticed that the second one (method2) is slower than the first one (method1)! I noticed the difference because I’m calling the method thousands of times. So I did a test to make sure and here is the average result from 20 tests of calling each method 3000 times (and the number of bytes is 1 million):

method1 average : 4s 572ms
method2 average : 5s 630ms

So my question is: Why is the first one faster than the second?

Here is the testing code to make sure I’m not doing something wrong with my testing:

import java.math.BigInteger;

public class BitShiftTests {

public static void main(String[] args) {

    int numOfTests = 20;
    int numberOfShifts = 3000;
    byte[] numbers = new byte[1000000];
    for (int i = 0; i < numbers.length; i++) {
        numbers[i] = (byte) (i % 255);
    }

    System.out.println("Testing method1...");
    BigInteger method1Sum = new BigInteger("00000000", 2);
    for (int i = 1; i <= numOfTests; i++) {
       long total = 0L;
       for (int j = 0; j < numberOfShifts; j++) {
          long startTime = System.nanoTime();
          method1(numbers);
          long endTime   = System.nanoTime();
          total = total + (endTime - startTime);
       }
       method1Sum = method1Sum.add(new BigInteger(Long.toString(total), 10));
       System.out.println(String.format("%-2d: %s", i, getTime(total)));
    }

    System.out.println("Testing method2...");
    BigInteger method2Sum = new BigInteger("00000000", 2);
    for (int i = 1; i <= numOfTests; i++) {
       long total = 0L;
       for (int j = 0; j < numberOfShifts; j++) {
          long startTime = System.nanoTime();
          method2(numbers);
          long endTime   = System.nanoTime();
          total = total + (endTime - startTime);
       }
       method2Sum = method2Sum.add(new BigInteger(Long.toString(total), 10));
       System.out.println(String.format("%-2d: %s", i, getTime(total)));
    }

    System.out.println("method1 average :   " + getTime(method1Sum.longValue() / numOfTests));
    System.out.println("method2 average :   " + getTime(method2Sum.longValue() / numOfTests));
}

private static void method1(byte[] bytes) {
    byte previousByte = bytes[0];
    bytes[0] = (byte) (((bytes[0] & 0xff) >> 1) | ((bytes[bytes.length - 1] & 0xff) << 7));
    for (int i = 1; i < bytes.length; i++) {
       byte tmp = bytes[i];
       bytes[i] = (byte) (((bytes[i] & 0xff) >> 1) | ((previousByte & 0xff) << 7));
       previousByte = tmp;
    }
}

private static void method2(byte[] bytes) {
    byte lastByte = bytes[bytes.length-1];
    for (int i = bytes.length-1; i > 0; i--) {
       bytes[i] = (byte) (((bytes[i] & 0xff) >> 1) | ((bytes[i-1] & 0xff) << 7));
    }
    bytes[0] = (byte) (((bytes[0] & 0xff) >> 1) | ((lastByte & 0xff) << 7));
}

private static String getTime(long nanoSecs) {

  int minutes = (int) (nanoSecs / 60000000000.0);
  int seconds = (int) (nanoSecs / 1000000000.0) - (minutes * 60);
  int millisecs = (int) (((nanoSecs / 1000000000.0) - (seconds + minutes * 60)) * 1000);
  int nanosecs = (int) nanoSecs - (millisecs * 1000000000);

  if (minutes == 0 && seconds == 0 && millisecs == 0) {
     return nanosecs + "ns";
  }

  if (minutes == 0 && seconds == 0) {
     return millisecs + "ms";
  }

  if (minutes == 0 && millisecs == 0) {
     return seconds + "s";
  }

  if (seconds == 0 && millisecs == 0) {
     return minutes + "min";
  }

  if (minutes == 0) {
     return seconds + "s " + millisecs + "ms";
  }

  if (seconds == 0) {
     return minutes + "min " + millisecs + "ms";
  }

  if (millisecs == 0) {
     return minutes + "min " + seconds + "s";
  }

  return minutes + "min " + seconds + "s " + millisecs + "ms";
}
}

Update:

Looks like the reason is I’m accessing 2 different indices in each loop in the second method, while I was accessing only 1 index in the first method. So it has nothing to do with reversing the loop.

Thanks @rm5248 and @Ben, I would choose the both of your answers if I could, but I chose the earlier one.

Answer 1

I did a quick test on this, and it seems as though the reason that the second method goes slower is because the algorithm changed a little bit. In the first, you’re keeping one value in a local variable, while you’re not in the second. Because of that, Java has to go to the array twice in order to get the variable out. Theoretically, this shouldn’t be any different, but I think that is has to do with how arrays are implemented in Java(I suspect that if you tried it in C the times would be much closer).

For reference, here’s my implementation(I think that it does the same thing, but it may not):

private static void method2(byte[] bytes) {
    byte prevByte = bytes[bytes.length-1];
    for (int i = bytes.length-1; i > 0; i--) {
        byte tmp = bytes[i];
        bytes[i] = (byte) (((bytes[i] & 0xff) >> 1) | ((prevByte & 0xff) << 7));
        prevByte = tmp;
    }
    bytes[0] = (byte) (((bytes[0] & 0xff) >> 1) | ((bytes[bytes.length-1] & 0xff) << 7));
}

Here were the average times that I got:

method1 average :   6s 555ms
method2 average :   6s 726ms